


Soft and White and Silent

by Mireille



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Written Pre-Order of the Phoenix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-02-24
Updated: 2003-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 05:21:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13780581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: Terrible things happen. Bill blames himself.





	Soft and White and Silent

Sometimes, even though he knew it wasn't quite rational, Charlie wondered if things would have turned out differently if they hadn't changed their usual routine.  
  
He'd let Bill get in the shower first that morning instead of springing out of bed and heading for the bathroom while Bill was still trying to get his eyes to focus; while Bill was in the shower, he rang downstairs--one of the advantages of staying in a Muggle hotel, apart from the anonymity; Charlie never had liked talking to people via fireplace--and ordered tea and that disgusting Egyptian coffee Bill drank. Bill would complain that they didn't get the coffee right, just like he did every morning. Charlie always wondered how he could tell; maybe it actually tasted decent, for a change.   
  
The owl came with the Daily Prophet--yesterday's, of course, this far from England, but day-old news was good enough for Charlie--while Bill was still showering, so Charlie sprawled on the bed with the paper, intending to finish with the front pages before he came out. He'd dawdle over the Quidditch scores while Bill read the news and financial section, and then, perhaps, they'd go out and see the rest of the city.   
  
That last had been part of their plans for five days running. They hadn't made it out of the room yet, but Charlie wasn't complaining.   
  
When he opened the paper, though, he froze into absolute stillness for a moment. Then, his voice sounding unnaturally calm, he called, "Bill? Would you--" His voice caught in his throat, and it took a few seconds before he could finish. "Come in here. Please."  
  
A moment later, Bill came in, still toweling his long hair dry, grinning wickedly. "Charlie-boy, I know I'm irresistible, but you might at least let me finish--"  
  
Charlie stared at him mutely, and whatever expression was on his face--he couldn't say for sure what it was, himself, he couldn't seem to feel it--must have convinced Bill that his irresistibility had nothing to do with why Charlie had called him into the room.   
  
"Merlin, Charlie, what is it?"  
  
He couldn't say; putting it into words would make it entirely too real, so he just held out the newspaper. Bill took it, and when the color drained out of his face, Charlie knew he'd seen the picture.   
  
A living room, rather shabby, but spotlessly clean now that there were no longer children trooping through it all day. A room Charlie knew Bill would recognize at once: there was the couch a three-year-old Charlie had jumped off of, knocking both his front teeth out; the oddly-placed picture on the wall behind it hiding the spot where five-year-old Bill had used magically indelible ink to print his name ("WiLLiAm ARthuR WeAsly"); just out of the frame of the photograph was the fireplace where they'd both hung their stockings every Christmas for their entire childhood.   
  
Familiar, but not familiar, because the camera had focused on the floor, where blood had soaked into the worn carpet, and their father lay with his arms outstretched, as if he'd been trying to protect their mother, on his left, and Ginny, on his right.   
  
" _Charlie,_ " Bill whispered, and Charlie could only nod.   
  
***  
  
"Are you going home for Christmas this year?" Bill asked. At least, that was what Charlie thought he'd asked; it was a little difficult to tell, since Bill was lying on his stomach with his head hanging over the edge of the bed, looking underneath it for some reason.   
  
"I might," he replied, leaning over to see what Bill was looking at. There was some dust, a crumpled piece of parchment, and a small lizard--they got in the house with annoying regularity--but nothing worth this much scrutiny. "Are you?"  
  
"If you do." Bill sat up, pushing his hair out of his face. He kept it tied back most of the time, but as usual, the first thing Charlie had done when he arrived was to untie it; he liked to be able to run his fingers through it when he kissed Bill. "And have you seen my right shoe? The left one's there, but the right--"  
  
"Is over by the chair," Charlie said. "What do you need your shoes for, anyway? I'm perfectly happy not going anywhere."  
  
He sighed. "I have a meeting I couldn't reschedule. After that, I'm all yours until Monday, though."  
  
Charlie grinned. "You're all mine anyway."  
  
Bill chuckled. "You sound like you've been reading Mum's romance novels again--you know, the ones she hides under her knitting and pretends don't exist. Anyway. Christmas."  
  
"Anyway, I notice you're the one who knows where she hides those books." Charlie sighed. "Christmas. I'm not really looking forward to it."  
  
"Time off from work, a chance to see the family and eat Mum's cooking--what could be wrong with that?" Bill's smile was a little wistful, though, and Charlie knew he'd been thinking the same thing.   
  
In a creditable imitation of his mother's voice, Charlie said, "'It's about time you settle down, you know, Charlie."  
  
Bill grinned. "'Don't tell me there's not one nice young witch somewhere in Egypt. And if you stopped wearing that horrible earring, you might be able to meet her.'" He shook his head. "I don't think she's ever going to forgive me for not marrying Fleur, even if we weren't ever half as serious as Mum thought we were."   
  
Charlie winced, a bit; he knew Bill and Fleur Delacour hadn't been a serious couple, but he still hated to think about the two years Bill had spent in England, when they almost never saw one another, and along with the ever-present worry that Bill would be hurt, or killed, on a mission for the Order, Charlie had had to cope with the irrational, jealous, miserable feeling that some little French girl was going to take him away from Charlie.   
  
Bill had gone back to Egypt once the war was over, and Charlie knew that the prevailing opinion in the Weasley family was that he was running away from a broken heart. He never did anything to correct their assumptions.  
  
Charlie sighed. "The hard part, though, is--"  
  
"--not being able to tell her you have found someone, and you are settled?" Bill interrupted, adding quietly, "At least, I am."  
  
He nodded. "As settled as I can be, with me in Romania and you here. And then to not be able to touch you the entire time we're there.... that might be easier if we saw each other all the time, but we don't, and it's not."  
  
Bill was silent for a moment. Then he said, "We don't have to go."   
  
"Hm? Bill, it's Christmas, they'll be expecting--"  
  
"No, wait. Hear me out. We tell them we've volunteered to work over Christmas, to let the people with children spend the holiday with them. One of us can go visit the family in a couple of weeks; the other of us can go in January. So Mum won't send us Howlers for being horrible sons--" He grinned; both of them knew their mother well enough to know it was a possibility-- "but I don't have to go through the week of hell known as 'sleeping three feet away from you and not daring to touch you.'"  The grin changed, softening as he looked up at Charlie. "And that's not the best part."  
  
Charlie grinned back. "What is?"  
  
"We don't actually work over Christmas. We go away somewhere. Somewhere Muggle, so no one will possibly know who we are. And we have a proper holiday together."  
  
They'd never managed to do that before; their schedules didn't mesh very well, and what usually happened was that Charlie spent a week-end in Egypt, or Bill visited him in Romania for a few days, and they behaved very respectably in public--where they spent as little time as possible--and barricaded themselves indoors most of the time, making up for long weeks apart. Charlie grinned at him, and Bill grinned back.  
  
"So, how does that sound to you, little brother?" he asked. Charlie knew he should have felt guilty about the way Bill said "little brother," his voice warm and rich and laced with secrets just between them.   
  
Then again, there were a lot of things he should have felt guilty for, and he didn't. "Sounds like a brilliant plan."  
  
"Of course it does. I am the clever one, after all."   
  
"And what does that make me?"  
  
Bill leaned in close to him, his breath hot against Charlie's cheek as he murmured, "The pretty one?"  
  
Charlie chuckled, his eyes going to the shiny burn scars on his arms. "Try again."  
  
"The perfect, gorgeous, sexy one. Who is going to make me very, very late for my meeting."  
  
He grinned. "How am I going to do that?"  
  
"I believe," Bill whispered against Charlie's skin, "that it's going to involve pinning me to the bed and having your wicked way with me."  
  
"How very irresponsible of me," Charlie said, grabbing at Bill's shirt front and pulling him down onto the bed again. "I should really be ashamed of myself."  
  
Bill nodded. "Oh, yes, definitely. You should give yourself a stern talking-to. But later. Right now, you're supposed to be leading me astray."  
  
He pulled Bill's shirt out of the waistband of his trousers, sliding his hand underneath, stroking the warm skin and feeling Bill shiver. "That's right, I am. How am I doing?"  
  
Bill gave every impression of being lost in thought. "It's a promising start," he said after a moment. "It needs a bit more work to be truly effective, though."  
  
Charlie kissed him then; it was gentle at first, but then Bill made a quiet whimpering noise, somewhere in the back of his throat, and without consciously thinking about it, Charlie deepened the kiss, crushing Bill's mouth against his.   
  
"Very promising," Bill said, and then he stopped talking altogether.   
  
***  
  
"We should go home," Charlie said after a while. He was lying on the bed, still not dressed. "We should--someone needs to be there."  
  
Bill didn't turn back from the window; he'd been staring outside since a few moments after he'd seen the news. "There's Percy," he said dully.   
  
"No, there's not," Charlie said. "You know he isn't--he won't...." He shook his head. Left up to Percy, he'd be surprised if their parents got more than an unmarked grave somewhere.   
  
"You're right. He won't," Bill agreed finally.   
  
"So we should go home."  
  
After a long pause, Bill said, in a voice barely louder than a whisper, "Yeah. I guess we have to."  
  
Charlie sighed. "Come here?"  
  
Bill nodded, coming back over to the bed and sitting down. Charlie put his arms around him, laying his head on Bill's shoulder. "It's going to be all right," he whispered.  
  
"No, it's not," Bill whispered back, his lips pressed against Charlie's hair.  
  
"No, it's not," Charlie admitted. "But just for a few minutes, can we pretend it will be?"  
  
Bill was silent for a long time, but then, finally, he looked Charlie in the eye. "Yeah. We can."   
  
Charlie kissed him then, desperately, trying to make himself forget about the picture of his parents and sister lying dead on the floor, about the prospect of going back to the house where he grew up to pack up his parents' things and bury his family, about everything but kissing Bill. Bill seemed just as desperate, his fingers digging into Charlie's shoulders as they kissed, holding him tightly and whispering, again and again, "Don't think about it, Charlie, just don't think."  
  
They both knew that was impossible, but they tried anyway; Charlie pushed Bill down onto his back, his hands on Bill's shoulders, his knees on either side of Bill's thighs. Bill looked up at him, and Charlie thought, fleetingly, that any other day, Bill would have been grinning--they both would have been grinning. Charlie had never been able to look down at Bill like this and not grin from the sheer unbelievable joy of being there, of having what he'd spent so long convincing himself he would never have.   
  
But today, no one was smiling, and Bill looked up at him with something akin to desperation. Charlie leaned down to kiss him, again and again, until Bill pulled off the towel that was wrapped around his hips, letting it fall to the floor, and pulled Charlie down on top of him. And then Charlie lost all sense of time, was no longer able to think to himself "and then Bill did this, and I did that...."; it all dissolved into raw sensation: Bill's tongue in his mouth, Bill's teeth nipping sharply at his lower lip, Bill's legs wrapped around him, Bill's voice, low and hoarse, in his ear, begging Charlie for more, please, now, Charlie....  
  
And then Charlie was pushing into Bill, and Bill was looking up at him, his eyes urging Charlie to keep going, faster, harder, Bill's hips arching up to meet him, Bill's hands clutching at his hips, and this was real, they were both here; no matter what else had happened, the two of them were both here, and alive, and they were going to stay that way.  
  
A very small, detached part of Charlie's mind was aware of how unusually quiet they both were; their ragged breathing, and the faint occasional squeak of the bed, were the only sounds in the room. And all the while, Bill was looking up at him, his eyes not wavering from Charlie's for an instant; he didn't even seem to be blinking.  
  
Charlie didn't blink either, or it didn't feel as though he did; he didn't want to look away from Bill, out of the irrational terror that if he did, Bill would be gone as well. Then, still silently--Charlie bit down on his lip to suppress the moan that he could feel building in him--Charlie thrust deep inside Bill one last time and came before collapsing, sweaty and drained, onto Bill.  
  
After a moment, he moved to lie next to Bill on the bed, reaching over to wrap his hand around Bill's erection, jerking Bill off roughly. Bill made absolutely no sound at all when he came, just went very still for a second before his entire body spasmed with it, his hips arching up off the bed as he thrust frantically into Charlie's hand.  
  
Charlie moved back up on the bed, putting his arms around Bill. "Love you," he whispered.   
  
"Shh," Bill whispered back, silencing him with a kiss.   
  
***  
  
It didn't snow the day of the funeral, although it looked as though it was going to at any moment, the sky a dull, uniform shade of greyish-white that blended in with the whiteness of the horizon.  
  
Neither of them had had any trouble getting more time off work, not when their entire family was being buried--well, not Percy, but they'd learned over the last few years that there wasn't much point in counting Percy as one of them. They apparated in separately, and got rooms at the Leaky Cauldron; they didn't discuss it beforehand, but they didn't have to. Neither of them could stand to set foot inside the Burrow. Charlie thought that before they left, they'd need to hire someone to pack up their family's belongings. He might be able to look through them, if he just didn't have to go to the house where he'd grown up, the house where his parents and sister and three of his brothers had been murdered.   
  
But right now, he didn't have to worry about that. Right now, he just had to stand next to Bill--standing very close, but not touching, and Charlie knew that the aunts and uncles and cousins who were there were whispering that it was good that Arthur and Molly's boys had each other--under the oppressive greyness of the sky.  
  
Even in a sea of black-robed, red-haired people, it wasn't difficult for Charlie to find Percy in the crowd, a thin, pale figure standing a small distance away from everyone else. Charlie nudged Bill gently, nodding in Percy's direction. "I told you he'd be here."  
  
"He should have stayed away," Bill murmured.  
  
"Bill--"  
  
"He works for them, Charlie, he works for--"  
  
Charlie sighed. They'd had this conversation several times in the past few days. "He works for the Ministry, Bill. No one has ever proved that the Ministry's allied with You-Know-Who."  
  
Bill glared in Percy's direction, still whispering. "They're not trying to get rid of him, are they? He takes over, and they don't even care."  
  
"Just don't cause trouble. Not here. Mum wouldn't like it."  
  
Bill didn't say anything else, just stood next to Charlie, glaring at Percy. For his part, Percy didn't give any sign that he'd seen either of them. He just stood there until the final coffin had been lowered into the ground, and then he disapparated.   
  
Charlie had thought, earlier, that he might go and try to talk to Percy--the three remaining Weasleys had to stand together, didn't they?--but he didn't even really notice that Percy was gone. He was too busy watching as his mother's grave was filled in, barely even aware of the tears streaming down his face.  
  
***  
  
Late that night, Charlie slipped into Bill's room, closing the door quietly behind him. Bill was standing at the window, staring out at the snow, which had finally begun to fall. "We should have been there," he said, without turning around.  
  
"What good would that have done?" Charlie said quietly, sitting down on the edge of Bill's bed.   
  
"We could have saved them."   
  
"Or we could be dead now, too."  
  
"Maybe we're supposed to be," Bill whispered. "We were supposed to be there, and we turned our backs on them, and we should have  _been_  there."   
  
"We didn't come home for Christmas. That's hardly a crime, Bill."  
  
Bill shook his head. "We're as bad as Percy."  
  
Charlie laughed; it sounded brittle and forced, even to his own ears. "You know, Bill, to most people, we're a hell of a lot worse than Percy."  
  
Bill was quiet for a long time. Then, very softly, he said, "I know. And that's why we weren't where we were supposed to be."  
  
"We didn't do anything wrong," he insisted, but Bill just shook his head.  
  
"It's our fault, Charlie," Bill said.   
  
Charlie got up, going over to Bill and putting a hand on his shoulder. "It's not our fault."  
  
Bill didn't answer, only pulled away from him.   
  
Charlie stood there for a long while, waiting for Bill to turn back to him and put his arms around him, but it didn't happen, and eventually, Charlie went back to his own room to spend the night sitting in front of the fireplace, staring into the flames.   
  
When he went to Bill's room in the morning to drag him down for breakfast, the room was empty and Bill had gone.

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


End file.
